The Great Conceit and Mistake of Western Intelligensia

Growing in nascent form but taking a fuller shape since September 11th has been the refusal of Western intellectual elites, mostly liberal but not exclusively so, to recognize the state of war declared by radical Islam on the West. Counter-arguments on the state of affairs have varied from “It’s not our war”, “It needs a police action, not a war” to “this war was started by the (insert shadowy Jew-related group here)”. All of which betray an essential flaw in the thinking that has come to dominate the mainstream of the intelligentsia, that is to say that the Western intelligentsia cannot bring themselves to recognise an enemy from outside of their own society. Motives other than malign are arrogantly attributed to our enemies in order to remove the possibility from their minds that these people might not have a legitimate grievance against the West that we can safely acknowledge.
The aims of the Islamists are declared and publicly so. The aims are to dominate the West and eradicate the culture of freedom, to spread a fiery and intolerant faith to all corners of the world, and though they differ as to the ultimate timing, the elimination of all Jews (oh, and Hindus, Atheists, Buddhists, Muslims who don’t do exactly as they are told by the Islamists, Sikhs, and any other faith or lack of it or lack of sufficient Muslim piety…). This is not an enemy with which one can reason but rather an enemy that interprets anything other than military action as weakness allowing further aggression.
This does not mean that the Islamists are stupid – far from it. Crazed sadists, yes, but they know how to exploit the malaise of the intellect in the West. Notice that each act of aggression is marketed to the West as an act or revenge or protest, most often dressed up as a “protest” about the “occupation in Palestine” but also aimed at foreign policy, cultural outlook and policy or anything where the appeal will fall to guilt and create inertia or retreat. The Madrid bombings were in reality about punishing Spain both for contributing troops to Iraq but especially to begin the Muslim reconquest of Spain by putting the Spanish on notice as to their fate for daring to be independent in the 15th Century. The Islamist problem is with Israel, not with the location of its borders; in their world, Israel must not exist at all.
And furthermore, by our refusal recognise their aims, by refusing to recognise them as enemies that must be fought and killed until they surrender, we facilitate that aim. There is no backing away from this fact; the Islamists have been emboldened by each retreat and compromise, each time treating the terrorist movements and states as normal entities and insisting on applying the rules only to ourselves.
There is a saying: We can only bend the rules so far before they come around and stab us in the back.